Waiting
by cazflibs
Summary: Plot-filler for 'Parallel Universe'. Upon his return from meeting his female self in the parallel universe, Lister waits 12 long hours before he can take a pregnancy test.


**Plot-filler for 'Parallel Universe'. Upon his return from meeting his female self in the parallel universe, Lister waits 12 long hours before he can take a pregnancy test.**

**Written because laurenmitchell told me to. **

* * *

"_How_ long?"

Although the face on the screen didn't smile, the gathering bunch of wrinkles around his eyes belied his amusement at this rather - well, calling it an 'odd situation' would be a smegging understatement.

"Twelve hours," Holly repeated matter-of-factly.

Lister scrabbled, unseeing, to grab onto the edge of the chair for support. "But-but why do I have to wait that long?"

"So us spectators have time to fetch the popcorn?"

"You - " Words failed him - or were reigned in with a great deal of self-restraint, as he gestured threateningly at the Cat's toothy grin. " - are really not helping."

The Holly Hop Drive had whisked the trio safely back to their own dimension earlier that day. Yet _that_ drinking session, which had resulted in _that_ night together, left all three still pondering _that_ question.

Positive or negative?

"You should count yourself lucky you're still following their dimension's laws of physics rather than ours." Holly's face bunched in a facial shrug. "In this dimension, you'd have to wait two weeks before the hormone levels are high enough to register on pregnancy tests."

"Lucky?" Lister cried, head spinning. "Holly, I could be up Crap Creek without a paddle!" He paused for a moment, eyes drifting unsteadily. "Or up the duff without the right equipment."

Rimmer rocked back and forth on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. "Ohh dear, Listy," he offered, although the tone failed to match the supportive words. "What would your mother say?" He shook his head theatrically as he tutted. "Such a crass notion to get knocked up on a first date."

Although Lister didn't hesitate in shooting the man a marked scowl in return, Holly kept deliberately quiet. As _Red Dwarf's_ mainframe, he had access to medical records and exit interviews to all past and present crewmembers. If Rimmer had known the details surrounding the resignation of Yvonne McGruder, he might have been a tad more tactful about the whole situation.

* * *

Lister pushed what remained of his curry - a rather large amount for so insatiable a man when it came to Indian cuisine - around his plate absently. The fork scraped repeatedly across the ceramic to form Pilau Mountain, as its mournful Creator watched on.

Rimmer grit his teeth. "Do you mind, Lister?" he snapped over his shoulder. Turning back to read his book, he flicked an un-amused eyebrow. "Team up that squealing with your guitar playing, and you risk composing arguably the most terrifying melody in the known universe."

"I can't help it," Lister sulked, setting the fork back down on the table. "I feel really odd."

It was indeed a peculiar sensation. Like he was feeling the onset of Bangalore Belly; how his bowels would churn predictions of a lengthy post-vindaloo toilet session the next morning. Only…lower down.

"You've gone off foods you once enjoyed," Rimmer remarked with a barely-concealed smirk. "Key giveaway, you know squire."

"Smeg off," Lister batted back, although his heart wasn't in it. He glanced back to the hologram studying intently at his revision desk. "It doesn't mean I'm - " Tailing off, his eyes narrowed to read the cover of Rimmer's book. " - are you reading a _pregnancy_ manual?"

"It helps to be prepared, Listy!"

"It _helps_ if you keep your mouth zipped."

Pushing away his plate, Lister instinctively bowed to habit. Drawing forth the familiar silver box from his jacket pocket, he pulled out a cigarette between his lips whilst simultaneously patting himself down for his Zippo.

Humming an absent tune to himself as he struck the wheel, it was only as the flame flickered millimetres from the end of the cigarette that he paused thoughtfully. He watched as the tiny flame danced before him, his wordless ditty dying in its wake.

Sighing long and hard, he snapped back the hood to silence the fire and swore to himself unintelligibly.

* * *

Sickness sucked.

It wasn't the _being_ sick that he hated - he'd gotten far too used to that after his frequent beer binges with Petersen all those hundreds of thousands of years ago. It was the _feeling_ sick. The lurching belly. The horrible hovering feeling that sat on your tongue, constantly poised in smegging readiness.

He'd been trying to fall asleep for hours now, but his body seemed to refuse to shut down and clock out for the day. His brain was still wired - perhaps still wrestling with the riddle of how his _nipples_ could feel like they were _twinkling_ - his lower abdomen wouldn't stop tugging, and the room seemed to want to spin every time he closed his eyes.

This particular concoction does not, a good night's sleep, make.

"You're still awake." Words below him in the darkness.

"Smeggin' hell!" Lister gasped, their suddenness sparking a shock in his chest. He wiggled his way to the edge of the bed to glance down into the murk, heart still racing. "You scared the living daylights outta me, Rimmer," he snapped, an edge of irritation on his voice that even he hadn't been expecting. "Thanks for the free smeggin' heart attack."

Temper sated, he paused sullenly, chin slumping on his arm. "And what makes you think I'm awake, anyway?"

"Apart from the now incessant yakking?" Rimmer mused. "The biggest giveaway was probably the fact that you haven't been snoring like an asthmatic warthog with a chronic catarrh problem."

"Oh cheers, thanks a lot!" came the offended reply, although he was hardly expecting concern from the man in the bottom bunk.

"It's true!" Rimmer parried back. "All this tense bloody silence - " he muttered. "It's keeping me awake."

"The _silence_ is keeping you awake?"

"Yes."

"Right."

* * *

7am.

He didn't even know there _was_ a 7am. In his book, 7am was hovering on the peripherals of myth.

The full-length mirror on the inside of his locker hadn't been there before the accident. The Cat had insisted on hanging one there, _Cloister forbid_ that he had to go two minutes without being able to check his outfit still looked gorgeous.

Lister examined himself in the reflection, his hand running over the gentle bump that he could swear blind had started to form overnight. He'd never felt so surreal in all his life. Either the symptoms were the cruel fabrications of his own mind as it finally cried mutiny against two and a half decades of punishment. Or...

...he wasn't entirely sure if the alternative was the most wonderful or the most frightening concept in the entire universe. Perhaps both.

"Bing bong." The unmistakable London twang echoed over the ship's intercom. "Could Dave Lister please come to the Medi-Bay for scheduled testing. Thank you."

The Cat's excited wails echoed down the corridor long before the creature himself appeared in the doorway. "Come on, monkey!" he called. "Time to see if you're gonna have a mini-monkey!"

Rimmer was right on his tail - in the metaphorical rather than literal sense. Perhaps picking up on Lister's prickled annoyance, he shooed the feckless feline away with a flick of the hand and a meaningful scowl.

Striding into their shared quarters, he stood just beside his bunkmate to face the mirror, meticulously checking his H in the reflection.

"That stupid moggy just doesn't know how to be subtle," he muttered under his breath. "But what decorum do you expect from the result of three million years of flea-bitten inbreeding?"

When no reply came, his eyes flitted across to Lister's reflection. Hands still resting on the shallow mound of his belly, a steadying breath seemed to catch quiet and ragged in his throat.

"Don't worry," Rimmer offered. "It could be nothing."

Lister watched as a small but unmistakable smile attempted to tug at the corner of Rimmer's mouth in some semblance of reassurance. He echoed it weakly.

"After all, you usually look that fat."

As the hologram strode out the door, Lister's face slowly sank - teeth grinding, unawares. He found himself wondering - not for the first time - how he could feel strangely torn between hugging the daft man and punching him out, all in the same breath.

* * *

**We all know how this story ends. Lister's pregnancy test was positive... A****nd so was mine. **


End file.
